Is Kevin Love Overrated.

[Tr1boy]

I don't think anyone on here has a serious problem with the idea of Kevin Love in green, I think we're all just arguing about an acceptable price.

At least a couple posters seem to have a problem.

Mike

the problems alluded to above seem to be first, the cost of obtaining love. i could live with some of the scenarios for a  love trade that bounce around here. but the underlying point seems, to me at least, that it makes no sense to get love if the celtics deplete the team doing so.

next in the department of doubt is love's defense, or lack there of. defense is hard to gauge with stats in the nba, but i think part of the problem is that for love to rebound at such an insane rate he often positions himself for rebounds, not defense. meaning that he does not put full effort into playing defense on his man each and every time.

most distressing, to me, is that no player in the entire league gives up more points at the rim than kevin love. this is not a category you want your player to be #1 in.

next, his opponents take the 10th most FGA at the rim and by far they score at the best rate of players in that range. love essentially allows an average of more than 5 layups or dunks per game. FIVE. again, i think this is tied in part to his focus on rebounds instead of defense.

but in all honesty, under his current system perhaps he is not supposed to be a rim defender and this may account for SOME of those lay ups he lets' through. but that only explains a portion of a troubling facet of his game. but no matter how you look at it, love isn't a guy who does much to stop his man from scoring.

love clearly is an excellent player, a great scorer, and a very good rebounder, but does all that make up for his being a poor defender? or does his being a poor defender lower his overall value as a player to the point where he is not able to win enough games given his cost in salary and trade chips? crudely stated, does he give up so many points that the advantage of his scoring is significantly eroded?

another way to put this is if we put aside his gaudy stats of points and rebounds and look at plus/minus (one more flawed stat) last season love was at 4.6+ per game, which was about 31st in the league.

31st is good, but not elite. and the question is whether the price the celtics will have to pay for love is justified for a very good, but not elite over all player. is a very good player good enough for what the celtics will pay for and need in their pf?

do love's defensive flaws detract from his over all ability to carry a team to victory consistently?

EDIT: when i revisited the +/- ratings once more, i sorted by "per 36 minutes." when looked at that way, love comes in at around 67th in the league.

Very nice post, but I think it's a mistake to analyse defense separately from rebounding. It's also a mistake to say someone is a bad defender because they're too focused on rebounding. Blocking out and rebounding IS defense.
 
Rebounding is the second most important part of basketball. The most important thing is shooting because it wins games. But without the ball you can do nothing. It means the other team has missed a shot and you're not letting them have a second chance to score.

Chris Bosh's rebound and pass to Ray Allen in game 6 of last season's finals is a good example about the importance of rebounding to defense.

Kevin Love is a great shooter and elite rebounder. His rebounding ability should be a positive factor when considering his defensive ability.

I disagree. Taking care of your defensive responsibilities are first. This means shadowing your man to prevent easy buckets. If you have that under control than provide weakside defense help and or rebound the ball.

You think any players now in the spurs or heat series play shoddy defense like love does on many occassions?? Pops would be going crazy from the bench

This pointed out  love still can change but its not likely or it wont be easy for him to as he hasnt played defense like this for 6 seasons now

[Mr Green]

I don't think anyone on here has a serious problem with the idea of Kevin Love in green, I think we're all just arguing about an acceptable price.

At least a couple posters seem to have a problem.

Mike

the problems alluded to above seem to be first, the cost of obtaining love. i could live with some of the scenarios for a  love trade that bounce around here. but the underlying point seems, to me at least, that it makes no sense to get love if the celtics deplete the team doing so.

next in the department of doubt is love's defense, or lack there of. defense is hard to gauge with stats in the nba, but i think part of the problem is that for love to rebound at such an insane rate he often positions himself for rebounds, not defense. meaning that he does not put full effort into playing defense on his man each and every time.

most distressing, to me, is that no player in the entire league gives up more points at the rim than kevin love. this is not a category you want your player to be #1 in.

next, his opponents take the 10th most FGA at the rim and by far they score at the best rate of players in that range. love essentially allows an average of more than 5 layups or dunks per game. FIVE. again, i think this is tied in part to his focus on rebounds instead of defense.

but in all honesty, under his current system perhaps he is not supposed to be a rim defender and this may account for SOME of those lay ups he lets' through. but that only explains a portion of a troubling facet of his game. but no matter how you look at it, love isn't a guy who does much to stop his man from scoring.

love clearly is an excellent player, a great scorer, and a very good rebounder, but does all that make up for his being a poor defender? or does his being a poor defender lower his overall value as a player to the point where he is not able to win enough games given his cost in salary and trade chips? crudely stated, does he give up so many points that the advantage of his scoring is significantly eroded?

another way to put this is if we put aside his gaudy stats of points and rebounds and look at plus/minus (one more flawed stat) last season love was at 4.6+ per game, which was about 31st in the league.

31st is good, but not elite. and the question is whether the price the celtics will have to pay for love is justified for a very good, but not elite over all player. is a very good player good enough for what the celtics will pay for and need in their pf?

do love's defensive flaws detract from his over all ability to carry a team to victory consistently?

EDIT: when i revisited the +/- ratings once more, i sorted by "per 36 minutes." when looked at that way, love comes in at around 67th in the league.

Very nice post, but I think it's a mistake to analyse defense separately from rebounding. It's also a mistake to say someone is a bad defender because they're too focused on rebounding. Blocking out and rebounding IS defense.
 
Rebounding is the second most important part of basketball. The most important thing is shooting because it wins games. But without the ball you can do nothing. It means the other team has missed a shot and you're not letting them have a second chance to score.

Chris Bosh's rebound and pass to Ray Allen in game 6 of last season's finals is a good example about the importance of rebounding to defense.

Kevin Love is a great shooter and elite rebounder. His rebounding ability should be a positive factor when considering his defensive ability.

I disagree. Taking care of your defensive responsibilities are first. This means shadowing your man to prevent easy buckets. If you have that under control than provide weakside defense help and or rebound the ball.

You think any players now in the spurs or heat series play shoddy defense like love does on many occassions?? Pops would be going crazy from the bench

This pointed out  love still can change but its not likely or it wont be easy for him to as he hasnt played defense like this for 6 seasons now

Well you're not really disagreeing with me, you're disagreeing with Red Auerbach ...

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSu44PyP9mE[/youtube]

[cman88]

what player do fans here WANT the C's to use all their assets on? because there arent many stars who average 25ppg, 12rpg coming on the market the next 5 years,

and Danny surely isnt going to field 10draft picks over the next 5 years, nor do I think Sullinger/Olynyk are our answers as "stars" to lead the team.

I recall people thinking the cost for KG was too high at the time...now Kevin Love is not KG, but he IS an all-star level talent in this league. he was 4th in scoring.

not sure why you would bank on "potential" vs. "actual"

[Tr1boy]

what player do fans here WANT the C's to use all their assets on? because there arent many stars who average 25ppg, 12rpg coming on the market the next 5 years,

and Danny surely isnt going to field 10draft picks over the next 5 years, nor do I think Sullinger/Olynyk are our answers as "stars" to lead the team.

I recall people thinking the cost for KG was too high at the time...now Kevin Love is not KG, but he IS an all-star level talent in this league. he was 4th in scoring.

not sure why you would bank on "potential" vs. "actual"

I want LMA. Anthony Davis. If these players are not available trade our assets or even overpay a little for embiid or okafor next season

Right now sully and ko combined (with body improvements and experience) can provide the offensive production of love.

Then you have the 6th and 17th picks in a stong draft. All these assets are here to stay past this upcoming season also

[Fafnir]

what player do fans here WANT the C's to use all their assets on? because there arent many stars who average 25ppg, 12rpg coming on the market the next 5 years,

and Danny surely isnt going to field 10draft picks over the next 5 years, nor do I think Sullinger/Olynyk are our answers as "stars" to lead the team.

I recall people thinking the cost for KG was too high at the time...now Kevin Love is not KG, but he IS an all-star level talent in this league. he was 4th in scoring.

not sure why you would bank on "potential" vs. "actual"

Right now sully and ko combined (with body improvements and experience) can provide the offensive production of love.

No they can't. Nor can they provide the rebounding. Love is a 120 ORTG high usage player. Olynyk and Sullinger haven't posted such efficiency in even a low usage role.

I think its funny you want LMA, he's everything that Love is except he's a 2 point jump shooter instead of a 3 point jump shooter. He's a better defender due to superior length, but not by a whole lot. Still terrible in space and on help defense.

[Boris Badenov]

I don't think anyone on here has a serious problem with the idea of Kevin Love in green, I think we're all just arguing about an acceptable price.

At least a couple posters seem to have a problem.

Mike

love clearly is an excellent player, a great scorer, and a very good rebounder, but does all that make up for his being a poor defender? or does his being a poor defender lower his overall value as a player to the point where he is not able to win enough games given his cost in salary and trade chips? crudely stated, does he give up so many points that the advantage of his scoring is significantly eroded?

another way to put this is if we put aside his gaudy stats of points and rebounds and look at plus/minus (one more flawed stat) last season love was at 4.6+ per game, which was about 31st in the league.

31st is good, but not elite. and the question is whether the price the celtics will have to pay for love is justified for a very good, but not elite over all player. is a very good player good enough for what the celtics will pay for and need in their pf?

do love's defensive flaws detract from his over all ability to carry a team to victory consistently?

EDIT: when i revisited the +/- ratings once more, i sorted by "per 36 minutes." when looked at that way, love comes in at around 67th in the league.

First, that sort on plus/minus per 36 is next to meaningless because it doesn't filter by minutes played. The top 5 guys on the list - at least the one I'm looking at - are Seth Curry (SETH), DeAndre Liggins, Othyus Jeffers, Robert Covington and Malcolm Thomas. Shav Randolph was 7th. Lebron is something like 55th.

Second and much more important, you're looking at Love's raw plus/minus, which is hurt by the fact that he's on a mediocre team. Just to continue one of the running examples above, Anthony Davis was -1.7 last year. Does that mean he's terrible, or just on a really bad team?

If you look at net plus/minus, which is better but still somewhat flawed (because it doesn't control for the quality of a player's backups and other teammates), Love is a +11 per 100 possessions, because the wolves are really really bad without him on the floor.

And if you look at "real plus/minus," which uses regression techniques to wash out the effects of teammates and other factors, then Love is 11th in the league. Even that list doesn't produce a perfectly sensible ranking, but it does have James, Paul, Iggy, Durant and Nowitzki as the top 5. I'll take them over Liggins et al.

So in short: relying on plus/minus analysis (as you chose to), the answer to the question "does he give up so many points that the advantage of his scoring is significantly eroded?" appears to be a resounding no.

[winsomme]

no he is not overrated but some of the suggested packages for him are simply outrageous.

this.

He's one of the best players in the league without question.  the questionable part is that some people want to mortgage the farm for a single player that won't be nearly enough to make us a contender.  we'd have enough difficulty winning the division with adding him, never mind the conference in the playoffs

Bill Simmons ludicrous celtics trade proposal for Love is what fueled all of these ridiculous offers imo. Love is not overrated, but the rumored packages by the media are more than what Melo or Dwight Howard got in recent trades. Just insane. The TWolves are not going to get that type of return.

I think it's also the reports that whatever Danny is currently offering is not enough or not appealing.

This all probably going to remain speculation and insider report driven until the draft, but the question is a solid one. What is fair value for KLove?

Personally, I think Danny is going to have to somewhat overpay to get him here, and that's because legit stars are at a premium in the NBA. I just wish we had tanked a little more so we would be able to get KLove and use other chips to build the team that would play around Rondo and KLove.

We shall see. Pretty awesome off season any way you slice it.

[D.o.s.]

But I don't think anyone's saying that they wouldn't bring him to Boston for some combination of our assets.

At least a few ARE saying that, because they don't want to take on his salary.

Mike

This reads like a strawman to me, because I haven't seen anyone post that in here.

[D.o.s.]

I don't think anyone on here has a serious problem with the idea of Kevin Love in green, I think we're all just arguing about an acceptable price.

At least a couple posters seem to have a problem.

Mike

the problems alluded to above seem to be first, the cost of obtaining love. i could live with some of the scenarios for a  love trade that bounce around here. but the underlying point seems, to me at least, that it makes no sense to get love if the celtics deplete the team doing so.

next in the department of doubt is love's defense, or lack there of. defense is hard to gauge with stats in the nba, but i think part of the problem is that for love to rebound at such an insane rate he often positions himself for rebounds, not defense. meaning that he does not put full effort into playing defense on his man each and every time.

most distressing, to me, is that no player in the entire league gives up more points at the rim than kevin love. this is not a category you want your player to be #1 in.

next, his opponents take the 10th most FGA at the rim and by far they score at the best rate of players in that range. love essentially allows an average of more than 5 layups or dunks per game. FIVE. again, i think this is tied in part to his focus on rebounds instead of defense.

but in all honesty, under his current system perhaps he is not supposed to be a rim defender and this may account for SOME of those lay ups he lets' through. but that only explains a portion of a troubling facet of his game. but no matter how you look at it, love isn't a guy who does much to stop his man from scoring.

love clearly is an excellent player, a great scorer, and a very good rebounder, but does all that make up for his being a poor defender? or does his being a poor defender lower his overall value as a player to the point where he is not able to win enough games given his cost in salary and trade chips? crudely stated, does he give up so many points that the advantage of his scoring is significantly eroded?

another way to put this is if we put aside his gaudy stats of points and rebounds and look at plus/minus (one more flawed stat) last season love was at 4.6+ per game, which was about 31st in the league.

31st is good, but not elite. and the question is whether the price the celtics will have to pay for love is justified for a very good, but not elite over all player. is a very good player good enough for what the celtics will pay for and need in their pf?

do love's defensive flaws detract from his over all ability to carry a team to victory consistently?

EDIT: when i revisited the +/- ratings once more, i sorted by "per 36 minutes." when looked at that way, love comes in at around 67th in the league.

Very nice post, but I think it's a mistake to analyse defense separately from rebounding. It's also a mistake to say someone is a bad defender because they're too focused on rebounding. Blocking out and rebounding IS defense.
 
Rebounding is the second most important part of basketball. The most important thing is shooting because it wins games. But without the ball you can do nothing. It means the other team has missed a shot and you're not letting them have a second chance to score.

Chris Bosh's rebound and pass to Ray Allen in game 6 of last season's finals is a good example about the importance of rebounding to defense.

Kevin Love is a great shooter and elite rebounder. His rebounding ability should be a positive factor when considering his defensive ability.

He's definitely the only top 5 rebounder in the NBA with 3 point range. That's for sure.  He is, however, a subpar defender.

[MBunge]

I want LMA. Anthony Davis. If these players are not available trade our assets or even overpay a little for embiid or okafor next season

That is a group of players that Boston can't get and/or has absolutely no control over whether we get them or not.

Mike

[MBunge]

But I don't think anyone's saying that they wouldn't bring him to Boston for some combination of our assets.

At least a few ARE saying that, because they don't want to take on his salary.

Mike

This reads like a strawman to me, because I haven't seen anyone post that in here.

There's at least a few folks strongly arguing against Love without any mention of what it might take to get him.  Maybe they'd be happy if we got Love for Chris Babb and a few 2nd round picks but they pretty clearly don't want to pay whatever might be a reasonable price for him.

Mike

[hpantazo]

what player do fans here WANT the C's to use all their assets on? because there arent many stars who average 25ppg, 12rpg coming on the market the next 5 years,

and Danny surely isnt going to field 10draft picks over the next 5 years, nor do I think Sullinger/Olynyk are our answers as "stars" to lead the team.

I recall people thinking the cost for KG was too high at the time...now Kevin Love is not KG, but he IS an all-star level talent in this league. he was 4th in scoring.

not sure why you would bank on "potential" vs. "actual"

I want LMA. Anthony Davis. If these players are not available trade our assets or even overpay a little for embiid or okafor next season

Right now sully and ko combined (with body improvements and experience) can provide the offensive production of love.

Then you have the 6th and 17th picks in a stong draft. All these assets are here to stay past this upcoming season also

Since unrealistic body improvements seem to be on the table for discussion, why stop there? Why not wait for Bradley to grow 4 more inches, Olynyk to develop blazing speed, and Jeff Green to grow a pair?

[D.o.s.]

But I don't think anyone's saying that they wouldn't bring him to Boston for some combination of our assets.

At least a few ARE saying that, because they don't want to take on his salary.

Mike

This reads like a strawman to me, because I haven't seen anyone post that in here.

There's at least a few folks strongly arguing against Love without any mention of what it might take to get him.  Maybe they'd be happy if we got Love for Chris Babb and a few 2nd round picks but they pretty clearly don't want to pay whatever might be a reasonable price for him.

Mike

[Tr1boy]

what player do fans here WANT the C's to use all their assets on? because there arent many stars who average 25ppg, 12rpg coming on the market the next 5 years,

and Danny surely isnt going to field 10draft picks over the next 5 years, nor do I think Sullinger/Olynyk are our answers as "stars" to lead the team.

I recall people thinking the cost for KG was too high at the time...now Kevin Love is not KG, but he IS an all-star level talent in this league. he was 4th in scoring.

not sure why you would bank on "potential" vs. "actual"

I want LMA. Anthony Davis. If these players are not available trade our assets or even overpay a little for embiid or okafor next season

Right now sully and ko combined (with body improvements and experience) can provide the offensive production of love.

Then you have the 6th and 17th picks in a stong draft. All these assets are here to stay past this upcoming season also

Since unrealistic body improvements seem to be on the table for discussion, why stop there? Why not wait for Bradley to grow 4 more inches, Olynyk to develop blazing speed, and Jeff Green to grow a pair?

How is it unrealistic for ko to reach 260 and be in better condition?? Or sully to be more toned?

[hpantazo]

what player do fans here WANT the C's to use all their assets on? because there arent many stars who average 25ppg, 12rpg coming on the market the next 5 years,

and Danny surely isnt going to field 10draft picks over the next 5 years, nor do I think Sullinger/Olynyk are our answers as "stars" to lead the team.

I recall people thinking the cost for KG was too high at the time...now Kevin Love is not KG, but he IS an all-star level talent in this league. he was 4th in scoring.

not sure why you would bank on "potential" vs. "actual"

I want LMA. Anthony Davis. If these players are not available trade our assets or even overpay a little for embiid or okafor next season

Right now sully and ko combined (with body improvements and experience) can provide the offensive production of love.

Then you have the 6th and 17th picks in a stong draft. All these assets are here to stay past this upcoming season also

Since unrealistic body improvements seem to be on the table for discussion, why stop there? Why not wait for Bradley to grow 4 more inches, Olynyk to develop blazing speed, and Jeff Green to grow a pair?

How is it unrealistic for ko to reach 260 and be in better condition?? Or sully to be more toned?

You had previously referred to Sully as developing and Anthony Mason type body, which is crazy.

This was Anthony Mason in his NBA days: